Partner Express

Vol. 1, No. 2 - Fall 2004

by Kristin Elkinton

Keith was looking for someone to help record newly translated Bontoc Scripture portions onto cassette tapes. Felix ended up helping with the recording and with the remaining Bontoc translation work as well. In the process, he came to truly understand God’s message of love and forgiveness. By the time the New Testament was dedicated in 1993, the book had become his well-read treasure, and he and Mary were sharing its good news and wisdom with others.

Felix and Mary were chosen to be pre-marital counselors at their church in a program called Couples for Christ. Each couple commits to read the Bible together 15 minutes each day and attend a Bible study every other week. One of the men who made this commitment later told Keith, “My faith came alive.” Like Felix and Mary, he is no longer a Sunday-only Christian.

Felix has come to love God’s Word so much that he wants to have all of the Bible in his own language. When other believers formed a society for the Bontoc translation of the Old Testament, he longed to get involved, but his commitment to church ministry left him with no time for translation. So he volunteered his daughter Daphne.

By then Daphne had replaced her dream of becoming Bontoc’s greatest politician. “In college I discovered writing and decided instead to become the world’s best journalist,” she said. But Daphne’s father Felix had other plans for her. She would help translate the Bontoc Old Testament in his place.

In Bontoc culture, a daughter must obey her father. Her earthly father—and her Heavenly Father as well—wanted Daphne to become a Bible translator. “It was a Jonah moment for me,” she confessed. “I had to choose: become a journalist for the world, or a translator for God.”

Daphne chose to obey God and her father with an enthusiastic commitment to the task. She graduated “with excellence” from Alliance Biblical Seminary and recently taught at a workshop for other mother-tongue translators at Bagabag.

“I became a Bible translator in spite of myself,” Daphne says with a playful smile. But she may end up Bontoc’s best Bible translator ever.

The challenge before us is to equip national translators

Few things have stirred me as much as what I learned during my visit in April to the northern Philippines. With the challenges of Vision 2025 in my mind, I listened in amazement to some mother-tongue speakers who, in an incredibly short period of time, are becoming Bible translators.

The challenge before us is to equip national translators for the task.

In September 2003, SIL Philippines initiated a new approach to training mother-tongue translators (MTTs) to work in a group of related languages. In this training program, MTTs learn to translate Scripture by doing it. They put classroom learning into immediate practice, and then they teach others what they’ve learned, maximizing the effect of training and multiplying the number of Bible translators.

This training technique has demonstrated the dramatic results that are essential if we are going to see a translation project started in all 2700+ languages that need it by the year 2025. It was a privilege to meet these mother-tongue translators with their deep commitment to the task. It convinced me of the program’s merit, as did the documentation presented by SIL translator Keith Benn, champion of this program.

My question to Keith was, “What can we do to help?”

Keith’s reply echoed recommendations previously made by the JAARS Computer Technical Advisory Group: “National translators need computers, software and the current technology that SIL linguists have available to them.”

Expatriate translators sometimes pass on computers to national co-translators when replacing their own equipment with new and better technology. Older equipment suffices for those just learning computer skills, but outdated equipment limits more advanced translators and curtails progress.

It will cost about $1,500 to provide one computer equipped with current technology and linguistic software, for a trained mother-tongue translator in the Philippines or elsewhere. Your gift will help provide the computing technology and resources MTTs need but can’t afford.

Until all have heard,

James S. Akovenko
President

by Carol Brinneman

Larry and Terry Blackwell longed to serve God in missions, but obstacles to their involvement seemed daunting. A visit to JAARS began their adventure of faith as they watched God bring down every barrier. Larry assumed that working in Partnership Ministries—calling and ministering to people who had made gifts to JAARS—was the climax of his journey, but God had much more planned.

One day Larry saw Dr. Eugene Koning demonstrate an easy way to make inexpensive reading glasses. Fascinated by the invention, Larry learned how to bend stainless steel welding rod around a simple jig, cut a round plastic lens in half and snap it into the frame without the use of mechanical fasteners.

Not long afterward, Nard Pugyao asked Larry to go to the Philippines and teach this skill to some Isnag people so that those with poor eyesight could read God’s Word.

“Nard, I have no money for a trip,” Larry protested.

“God will provide,” Nard replied, pointing his finger to heaven.

The Blackwell’s Sunday school class learned of his need and pledged a significant amount toward expenses. Other funds came in too, and Larry was able to make the trip.

Amidst excited chatter, Isnag friends watched the glasses being made. Nard’s nephew learned the process and completed eight pairs before Larry left the village. Smiles broke out and tears fell as people tried on their glasses and discovered they could now read the Word with ease.

Following this ministry trip, Larry was invited to another Asian country for a similar purpose. In the months since his return to the U.S., Larry has had many opportunities to share his story. God not only removed the obstacles so the Blackwells could serve at JAARS, but He opened unexpected doors of overseas service too.